name: -Lord Marten Euteres
age: -46 years
gender: -Male
allegiance: -Revoltees
rank: -The Uncle
appearance: -Standing at 6'0 with broad shoulders, Marten is a solidly-built man. His hair is salt and pepper, and tends to be on the shaggier side, though he never lets it reach his shoulders. He has a goatee which varies in neatness. With a visage defined by bags under his eyes and a few hard wrinkles, it would appear as though Marten's years as a lord have not been entirely kind to him. But don't let the first glance fool you--Marten is anything but a frail older man. His skin still has a leathery quality to it and many of the muscles from his younger days remain, indicating he's still got quite a few more fights left in him.
— deformities: -Marten is no stranger to quarrels, so he has a few scars. Most noticeable is a slash made by a sword ages ago, just under his cheekbone and traveling diagonally along it (like where you put contour lmao). Also, on his right hand, his pinky and ring finger are missing--originally a right-handed man, Marten now fights with a sword with his intact left hand.
personality type:
ENTJ - The Commander
— defining positive traits:
+ Natural leader: Call it the royal blood in him, but Marten was practically born to lead the masses. He doesn't exactly have a silver tongue, but he is most definitely the man with the plan. Strategy is his specialty, and if there was one thing he could always beat the old King Richard at, it was chess. Marten enjoys the thrill of a fight, physical or political, and to him there is nothing that compares to the feeling of being surrounded by a group that devotes undivided loyalty to him, and him alone.
+ Clever: This is something that Marten has acquired over the course of four decades, and has sharpened through the years to a deadly point. There is no greater satisfaction than knowing he has out-witted someone, and no quarrel more stimulating than one that consists of both intellect and swords. He is no genius in all subjects one could learn from the scripts and scrolls, but he is crafty when it comes to using wit against someone, or toward a goal of his.
+ Self-assured: What self-respecting royal isn't confident in themselves? The first step to winning any battle, in Marten's mind, is to convince oneself that they will arise victorious. He believes that his own confidence may rub off onto his advocates and allies, and lead them to success riding on the coattails of morale. Of course, many of his adversaries may also interpret this trait as nothing more than sheer arrogance.
— defining negative traits:
- Ruthless: You know how, in battles, when the truly noble one has disarmed the other and has him pinned, the pure one with the upper hand shows mercy and lets the foe live? Marten has heard of such, and calls these men weak. Cunning as he is, "mercy" isn't exactly in Marten's vocabulary. When he is engaged in physical battle, he is usually out for blood, almost going mad at the first drawing of it, like a shark. When he fights with a sword or with an army, he doesn't hold back, and woe be unto the enemies that do not heed caution.
- Vindictive: Revenge? Revenge. Marten likes delivering his own special brand of what he calls "justice," though it's rather warped looking at it through his eyes. If someone crosses him, it would probably kill him to let it go unnoticed, unrepremanded. The natural wheel of karma has not been especially kind to Marten over the years, and he genuinely believes he needs to balance it out himself.
- Selfish: What do you get when you mix daddy issues, familial estrangement, and betrayal? A very selfish, emotionally closed-off young man. As he's grown stronger through the years, Marten has gradually become more engaged emotionally, and can actually exhibit a wide range of them. However, one lingering scourge on his spirit, his character, is his selfishness. His family, his own brother, having cast him away made a lasting impact on him. He is slow to trust someone entirely, always having his doubts, and nearly everything he does is for his own gain.
strengths: -Fighting with a sword (he has gotten much better at it over the years), strategizing, jousting
weaknesses: -Communicating his emotions, Set on doing things "his way" (bad at taking other perspectives into account)
likes: -Dogs (the big and aggressively loyal kind), Horses (of the massive and dark variety), Most animals tbh, Cold weather
dislikes: -Snakes, spiders, bastard kings stealing his throne
history: -His father, King Samuel, wasn't a very fair man. Marten and Richard were his only children, and after the death of the queen (during childbirth with Marten, the younger of the two boys), there was a lack of tenderness in the royal household. Samuel was a harsh man, but also a sickly one. At the ripe age of 30, Marten's father caught symptoms of a disease that impaired his breathing, with rattling, bone-chilling coughs that made Marten think of the fabled Plague centuries ago. Neglecting the younger son (who was essentially useless in Samuel's eyes, since he would not inherit the throne), Samuel spent his remaining time mentoring young Richard (who was then only thirteen) in the duties of the king. Growing up with nearly every achievement ignored by his father, and being barely acknowledged by his brother, Marten spent a good deal of his time in the royal stables. Like a common stable-hand, he broke horses and would ride them far and wide, once to one border of their land (he was gone for a whole week on this impromptu excursion, though Samuel didn't react beyond giving an exasperated sigh). The first weapon he learned was the lance, and jousting was a favorite adolescent sport of his.
The older he grew, the keener Marten's anger became, and his outrage against his father for devoting all of his energy to Richard became too much for him to handle. At the defiant age of fifteen, Marten confronted his father as he was seated on his very throne, in a room full of the king's court. He demanded that Samuel acknowledge his second son, the last remnant he had of his wife (what Marten didn't know was that Samuel also had a preordained distaste for his younger son, blaming him and his birth for the death of the queen). He also questioned, rather vehemently, why Richard was the son who would inherit everything, why they couldn't share some domain. Both Richard and Samuel were astonished at this sudden rebellion, and, being put on the spot in front of all the nobility, Samuel gave Marten his one and only chance to prove himself worthy of being on the same level as Richard. The dying King, weakened but still stoic, declared that his sons should engage in a fight with swords, and whichever the victor was was clearly more worthy of the crown. The loser would yield to the wish of his brother.
Marten, who had rarely touched a sword before this (and Samuel knew this), was daunted but didn't dare back down. The two boys donned sparring armor and their respective swords, and met in the courtyard for their duel. Many nobles, guards, and servants witnessed, the king included, as the two brothers, the last of their line, fought against each other. Richard was seventeen at the time, and a bit larger than Marten, who was only fifteen. Marten held his own for as long as he could, channeling the royal blood that gave him these basic fighting instincts. But thirty seconds into the duel, he realized the mistake he made. Richard was trained in the sword, and Marten knew little more about any weapon other than the lance. When his brother moved with the sword, it was like it was a part of him. Marten could see the bloodlust in his older brother's eyes crescendoing as victory came closer and closer to him. In his ambitious greed, Richard made a misstep (or perhaps it was fully on purpose), and in his attempt to disarm Marten, his sword swiped too low, and severed the ring finger and pinky clean off of Marten's hand.
Marten's sword fell, and the whole crowd watched aghast as he dropped to his knees in sheer agony as the blood rushed from the place where his fingers had been. Richard, too, looked shocked for a moment (this being his first induced injury in a battle), but he quickly recovered. He told Marten that since he lost and must yield to him, that his order was for Marten to leave the castle and go to one of the farthest outreaches of the kingdom, where he would live out his days as a lord. And if he objected to it, if he returned...Richard threatened that he would lose more than a couple of fingers. With that, his brother sheathed his sword and left, and Samuel cast a final, disdainful look at him.
That evening, with his hand wrapped up but aching horribly, Marten took the papers that gave him domain over a considerable amount of land, but not nearly comparable to the size of the kingdom itself, and left for that place with a small posse. A month later, he caught news that Samuel died and the young Richard had finally taken the throne, the throne that might have been his, if his father hadn't put young Marten in such an unfair, dangerous contest.
Marten rarely saw Richard after that, though he heard news of him quite often; even in the farthest reaches of their territory, the ripples of gossip still sounded. He spent his days fighting border quarrels with rogues, bandits, and people of the adjoining kingdom, fighting so he could keep the little scrap of land Richard had been so generous to endow to him. He managed to maintain the border and then some, delving maybe five good miles into the next territory and claiming it for his own, though he never reported to his brother of such things. It was nice to have land that was his own, that he was the sole ruler and owner of. And that was how he spent the majority of the proceeding thirty years, until he recently caught wind of Richard's death, and the joke of an heir they placed on the throne. It got some ideas turning in his head, and this time, he is sure he won't lose the throne over a petty sword fight; he's been practicing.
orientation: -Heterosexual
relationship status: -Single. He's had lovers here and there over the years, but nothing serious. Eventually he knows he will need a queen to continue his line.
crush: -Open
sig. other(if applicable): -Open
friends: -Tempest (his dog; a huge, dark-haired mastiff), OPEN he needs some friends, or allies at least
enemies: -Pretty much everyone else OPEN
family: -Richard Euteres (DECEASED), Samuel Euteres (DECEASED), Bastard King Boi
plot ideas? -I'm gonna put em in the chat thread
faceclaim: -Mads Mikkelsen
other: -I love my antagonist boi
